The Future of Consumerist

Over the last twelve years, Consumerist has been a steadfast proponent and voice on behalf of consumers, from exposing shady practices by secretive cable companies to pushing for action against dodgy payday lenders. Now, we’re joining forces with Consumer Reports, our parent organization, to cultivate the next generation of consumer advocacy.

Stay tuned as Consumerist’s current and future content finds its home as a part of the Consumer Reports brand. In the meantime, you can access existing Consumerist content below, and we encourage you to visit Consumer Reports to read the latest consumer news.

Everett wrote in how Capital One called him up and said, “due to the changes made by [the Card Act], Capital One would have to deny any charges that goes over your credit limit starting in February of 2010. However if you want to maintain the ability to go over your credit limit you could opt to have your account stay the same as it is now. Your fee for going over your credit limit would be dropped to $29 (from $39) if you chose to do this.”

What’s up is that the new CARD act says that if you’re going to charge overlimit fees, customers have to opt-in to it. Most credit card companies have chosen instead to drop overlimit fees entirely. Capital One is actually trying to get permission here, they’re just misleading in saying that they have to “deny any charges that go over your credit limit starting February 2010. In reality, after Feb 10. Capital One has to stop charging this consumer fees for any overlimit transactions.

So you’re not giving up all your rights, you’re opting in to overlimit fees. I’m sure there’s some subset of the population that enjoys paying fees, so I commend Capital One for developing a product line that addresses their needs.